On which I write about the books I read, science, science fiction, fantasy, and anything else that I want to. Currently trying to read and comment upon every novel that has won the Hugo and International Fantasy awards.

Pages

Sunday, February 1, 1970

Hugo Winners for Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form

In 2003 the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award was split into two parts, Long Form and Short Form. To be eligible for the Short Form award, a work must be a dramatized production in any medium, including film, television, radio, live theater, computer games or music and must be less than ninety minutes long.For the most part this has resulted in awards being handed out to individual episodes of television shows, although some other types of works have been nominated and the 2004 and 2009 awards went to other types of media.

A somewhat worrying trend is the dominance of the Doctor Who show in this category. While I agree that Doctor Who is a fine science fiction show and deserves to be honored, the slates of nominees since 2006 have generally been three or four episodes of Doctor Who, with a couple other nominees thrown in to round out the field. And while I don't have a particular argument with the winning choices during those years, I think it is bad for science fiction in general and bad for the Hugos specifically to have an award that has become as narrowly focused as this one seems to have been for the years of 2006 through 2012. Fortunately, in 2013, Game of Thrones broke the stranglehold Doctor Who had on the category, opening up the award to other dramatic works.

1941: Pinocchio written by Ted Sears (awarded in 2016)2003: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Conversations with Dead People2004: Gollum's Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards2005: Battlestar Galactica: 332006: Doctor Who: The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances2007: Doctor Who: The Girl in the Fireplace2008: Doctor Who: Blink2009: Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog2010: Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars2011: Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang2012: Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife2013: Game of Thrones: Blackwater2014: Game of Thrones: The Rains of Castamere2015: Orphan Black: By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried

All writing that appears on this blog is copyrighted to Aaron Pound and may not be reproduced without permission. Any elements that appear that are not copyrighted to me are used for criticism or commentary pursuant to the provisions of 17 U.S.C. § 170.